Qualcomm hopes Snapdragon smartbooks take bite out of Atom

Qualcomm has revealed that its 1Ghz Snapdragon ARM chip will ship in an …

Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor is finally coming to little laptops. The chip company has confirmed that its speedy ARM offering has been adopted by Lenovo for a new product with a netbook form-factor. The device will be available from AT&T, presumably offered with some kind of contract subsidy.

Despite being named after a flower, the Snapdragon has serious bite. Its Cortex-A8 core packs 1GHz of processing power, delivering an impressive balance of performance and energy efficiency. The chip is already being used in a handful of ultra high-end smartphones, including the HTC HD2 and Sony Ericsson's upcoming Xperia X10 Android handset. The company hopes to bring it to more mainstream phones and other devices in the future.

The Snapdragon-powered Lenovo system will be one of the first products in a new class of mobile devices that hardware makers are calling smartbooks—portable computers that look like netbooks but offer longer battery life thanks to low-energy ARM chips.

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs demonstrated the Lenovo product at a recent press event. According to PCWorld's coverage of the briefing, the smartbook will be officially launched during CES in January. It is said to use a custom Linux platform and is capable of playing high definition video. Jacobs reportedly touted an instant-on experience and long battery life as key advantages of the device. AT&T has already lined up to partner with Lenovo as a distributor. The exact battery life of the Lenovo product is not known.

AT&T is extremely enthusiastic about opportunities for netbook subsidy deals. The mobile carrier says that its Acer Aspire One subsidy bundle was a tremendous success last year, compelling the company to pursue similar arrangements. The telecom has already partnered with Nokia to distribute the Finnish phone giant's Booklet 3G and expect it to be a hot seller during the holiday season.

Qualcomm has also revealed that it is working with component manufacturers, handset makers, and network operators on multi-mode chipset solutions that will make it possible to support 3G and LTE simultaneously in mobile devices. The company contends that bringing such technology to the market will be a big step towards the start of the industry's transition from 3G to 4G networks.

If you believe the hot rumors coming out of Taiwan, it's likely that the new Lenovo system will not be the only smartbook that launches this year. A number of other vendors, including Asus and Acer are said to be working on their own ARM-based smartbooks. NVIDIA's Tegra will compete with the Snapdragon in this space. Both will attempt to take a bite out of the small form-factor laptop market that is currently dominated by Intel's Atom chip.